Dear Diary Read Online Free PDF

through.”
    “What is it, Rory?” he asked, gliding the bike her way until he was inches from where she stood. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
    “No.” His perception amazed her.
    “You haven’t come here in years and you’ve been busy when I’ve tried to see you. Now you’re going to be here‌—‌what?‌—‌two hours, maybe? Come on. You can have my room. I sleep on the couch half the time anyway. Just don’t leave.” Twisting the bike around, he called, “Follow me.”
    He took off before she could respond, apparently unwilling to listen to any more excuses. Muttering to herself about his incredible pigheadedness, Rory slid behind the steering wheel and turned the ignition. The engine groaned and chugged. “Come on,” Rory said through her teeth, pumping the accelerator. “Come on.”
    The engine turned unwillingly and finally caught, pinging loudly. Rory didn’t give it time to quit on her. She hit the accelerator and reversed rapidly, then cruised quickly in the direction Nick had taken.
    His bike was whisking along the sidewalk. She could see his brown sweatshirt and his khaki-clad, muscled thighs peddling in the distance. He turned right at the edge of campus and headed in the direction of Queen Anne Hill. Though she’d never been there, she knew the house he and his buddies rented was about three miles away. It was built circa 1910, and had three stories and was in a fairly respectable neighborhood, although, according to Nick, his particular house had gone to seed. That’s why it was rented to frat boys.
    Expecting to have to pace herself, Rory was surprised how quickly Nick rode. She kept an even speed behind him, chafing when she got caught at the light, frantic when he seemed to have vanished into thin air.
    But then she saw his bike starting to climb upward. She realized now why he’d chosen to ride a ten-speed than drive; it was faster. Keeping him in her sights, she tailed a dismally slow driver, finally cutting free just when Nick disappeared onto a residential street about six blocks away.
    Rory followed quickly, turning onto an avenue of small, older homes, some kept up, others having let time and the elements erode their once elegant structures. Nick was waiting on the sidewalk in front of a rambling green house.
    “Took you long enough.” He grinned as she rolled down her window. “Well, here it is‌—‌home, sweet home.”
    The driveway was two fir-needle strewn ruts, the center of which sported foot-high dandelions. As Rory cautiously turned in, the dandelions brushed the underside of her car.
    Music, heavy and throbbing, poured from an upstairs window as she pulled to a stop behind another car, this one sleek, gray and expensive. Nick’s, she knew, because she’d seen it last summer when he’d dropped by her mom’s apartment.
    Rory yanked on the emergency brake and cut the engine. Her mother and Michelle lived by themselves now; her father had moved to Chicago. The divorce had occurred right after the incident in the kitchen. Rory hadn’t told her mother. She hadn’t had the nerve. But it wasn’t necessary. Her parents’ marriage had been crumbling for years and it finally ended under the weight of its own bitterness and anger.
    “Hey, Shard!” a male voice yelled above the music. “Jenny called. Twice. She’s gonna be here in ten.”
    Rory stepped uneasily from her car, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder. Nick was just finishing locking his bike to the rail that ran around the front porch.
    “Yo, Nick? Ya hear me?”
    “I heard you,” Nick responded.
    The voice belonged to a blond guy hanging out of an upstairs window. He was shirtless even though the temperature wasn’t even sixty degrees. The male is a strange animal, she decided with a shake of her head.
    “Who’s Jenny, or should I even ask?” Rory inquired as Nick walked back to her.
    “Jenny Sumpter.”
    “Our Jenny Sumpter?” Her jaw dropped. “From Piper Point? She goes